My initial thoughts was that this guy was a pompous ass. I almost just closed the page and left it at that, but yea some of the ideas are interesting. I am still hostile towards him because of the intial, unnecessary attack on people that use syntax highlighting. I do not need it either but it sure makes scanning through my code a heck of a lot easier.

My first impression after reading that was "I don't need to read another thing this guy says", because he's got the mentality of a 13 year old, but I did; there are some nifty ideas in there -- code colouring based on context.

Yeah, seriously, what the heck? I mean, of all the myriad things one could pick to be elitist about, he chose syntax highlighting? Maybe it's just because I'm dyslexic, but syntax coloring really helps me pick out the code from my screen... is that supposed to make me a bad programmer or something?

But for my part, I know that when Perl 6 arrives I sure won't be needing a crutch to distinguish between the new and old features. ;)

Hiyas, its the pompous ass (thanks btw, its nice to have such a rich insult, rather than just some random series of swear words - weirdly i really do mean this).

My opinion on syntax highlighting and I hope this is roughly equivalent to my statement in the post, albeit maybe clearer - is that, certainly with Perl, the value that a program can add to explain the code is not great enough to get me beyond the point of annoyance from far too many colours, certainly when I take into account things like auto indenting and bracket matching that emacs (or any editor) already does.

I don't care for it when reading code that already compiles, but when I'm typing new code, if my concentration gets interrupted, and I forget a semicolon or closing parenthesis, it's nice to see that something's wrong right away.

Cnu igt makyy cngz O's cxozotm? I agree, he is probably one of the programmers who thinks any IDE with code completion is for wimps. I really don't use the coloring (I have it always on, I'm too used to it for it to be off), but it does make it a lot easier finding something, for instance string literals.

He did say he didn't like it. And then he proceeded to attack programmers who do. Calling it a crutch, and identifying its purpose as supporting programmers who don't know the syntax of their language, is an attack.

It's also a false one. The entire exercise of programming is all about keeping brain power focused on the things that matter; any amount of mental effort dedicated to recognizing that something is a string literal is too much. I can certainly understand a negative reaction to being basically called an idiot for "needing" syntax highlighting.

If the author meant something else, he clearly didn't communicate it very well.

I didn't read it like that, but then I know Greg (the author) personally so maybe I was just interpreting it in a more favorable light.

Anyway, I like syntax highlighting, FWIW. I certainly don't think it is a crutch, quite the opposite. I find I can scan code much quicker by picking up the general patterns that layout + colour provide.

But I didn't read his comment as an attack on me or anyone else, just a difference of opinion. Nice ideas, too.

Yep, it looks like this is a miscommunication. It's pretty clear to me that "crutch" isn't expressing an opinion about whether syntax highlighting is useful; it's expressing an opinion about the competence and abilities of the people who use it.